Because trauma so profoundly modifies the universal or shared structure of temporality, the traumatized person quite literally lives in another kind of reality, an experiential world felt to be incommensurable with those of others. This felt incommensurability contributes to a profound sense of alienation and estrangement from other human beings.

People often remain endlessly in unhappy, abusive, or depriving relationships by blaming their suffering on their own shortcomings, their not having "gotten it right" yet. Such an interpretive pattern can keep someone futilely trying to get it right forever.

When we dwell with others' unendurable pain, their shattered emotional worlds are enabled to shine with a kind of sacredness that calls forth an understanding and caring engagement within which traumatized states can be gradually transformed into bearable painful feelings that can be seamlessly and constitutively integrated into whom one experiences oneself as being.

Sarah Stark's novel, "Out There," contains rich and valuable descriptions of the essential features of emotional trauma in general and of combat-related trauma in particular - the shattering of innocence, the disruption of temporality, the alienation and estrangement, and the longing for a sibling in the same darkness.

In the course of describing his experience of grief, Julian Barnes fleshes out in excruciating detail how traumatic loss entails the collapse of one's world, a reconfiguring of time and space, a sense of profound estrangement from those who are not grief-stricken, and the dread of a second loss that impends with the passage of time - the fading of memory of the lost beloved.

In perceptual accommodation, I see myself (and you) the way you see me (and yourself), in order to secure a needed bond with you. My subjective reality is unconsciously surrendered and is usurped by yours.

In the experiencing of authentic temporality, the whole structure of human existence has to be brought into view - namely, that it is authentically intelligible only in terms of its stretching along between birth and the possibility of death, between two abysses of nothingness.

For both Martin Heidegger and Ludwig Wittgenstein, the purpose of philosophical concepts is to point us toward the path of transformation rather than to explain. Both philosophers seek to expose the illusions, sedimented in linguistic practices, that cover up our finitude and context-embeddedness.

Throughout the rest of their lives, those who have been traumatized encounter what I call "portkeys" that transport them again and again back to the original experiences of trauma, so that time is felt to be circular rather than linear.

It is from the horror of the doomsday scenario posed by climate change that the minimizers and scoffers turn away. Ironically, in turning away from the extreme dangers of climate change, we contribute to the coming to be of the horrifying catastrophe we are evading. We must face up to our apocalyptic anxiety before it is too late for the survival of future generations.

Denise Levertov's poem, "Talking to Grief," captures beautifully the process whereby grief (and other traumatic emotions), in finding a welcoming home in which to dwell, can become truly one's own - i.e., can become seamlessly and constitutively woven into the fabric of whom one experiences oneself as being.

In feeling ashamed we feel exposed as inherently flawed or defective before the gaze of a viewing, judging other. In shame, we are held hostage by the eyes of others; we belong, not to ourselves, but to them. In that sense, shame is indicative of an inauthentic or unowned way of existing.

"Death takes from us not only some particular life within the world, some moment that belongs to us, but, each time, without limit, someone through whom the world, and first of all our own world, will have opened up."

Experiences of emotional trauma become freeze-framed into an eternal present in which we remain forever trapped, or to which we are condemned to be perpetually returned through the portkeys supplied by life's slings and arrows.

Although the possibility of emotional trauma is ever present, so too is the possibility of forming bonds of deep emotional understanding within which the devastating emotional pain built in to our finite human existing can be held, endured, and eventually integrated.

"Every generation of poets and thinkers attempts to make sense of the enigmatic, unfathomable face of life, with its laughing mouth and mournful eyes. This will remain an unending task." - Wilhelm Dilthey

When we dwell with others' unendurable pain, their shattered emotional worlds are enabled to shine with a kind of sacredness that calls forth an understanding and caring engagement within which traumatized states can be gradually transformed into bearable painful feelings.

It is my view that the lamentable, endlessly recurring cycle of atrocity and counter-atrocity that has been so characteristic of human history derives significantly from the turning to metaphysical illusion in the effort to evade the tragedy of human finitude.

A tragedy like the shooting spree at and near Santa Monica College brings us face-to-face with our existential vulnerabilities - vulnerabilities to harm, death, and loss - and the existential vulnerability of all those we love and, perhaps worst of all, the limitedness of our ability to protect them.

The Boston Marathon bombing is a collective trauma for all of us, bringing us face-to-face with our existential vulnerabilities - vulnerabilities to harm, death, and loss - and the existential vulnerability of all those we love and, perhaps worst of all, the limitedness or our ability to protect them.

Like its analogue, "secure attachment," "trauma recovery" is an oxymoron - human finitude with its traumatizing impact is not an illness from which one can or should recover. A felt requirement to recover from, or become immune to, the circling back to emotional trauma can be a source of intense shame and self-loathing when, inevitably, it cannot be achieved.

When we dwell with others' unendurable pain, their shattered emotional worlds are enabled to shine with a kind of sacredness that calls forth an understanding and caring engagement within which traumatized states can be gradually transformed into bearable painful feelings. We must not turn away.

The loss of a loved one shatters our evasive illusions and confronts us with our finiteness and transience and with the finiteness and transience of all those we love. When our emotional world becomes shattered in this way, we need to find a context of human understanding, a "relational home," in which our traumatic emotional pain can be held and borne.

Following the death of a loved one, we typically both grieve the person who has been lost and preserve the bond with the lost person within our own being. This dialectic of loss and continuance is beautifully captured by the song, "Out to Sea," written by Stephanie Stolorow to commemorate the scattering of her grandmother's ashes in the waters of Monterey Bay.

The nature of a loss experience will depend complexly on the forms or dimensions of love that had constituted the lost relationship. If you, or someone you care about, ever experience a traumatic loss, never think or utter the words, "You have to let it go and move on." Do not turn away.

Painful emotional states become unbearable when they cannot find a "relational home" - that is, a context of human understanding - in which they can be shared and held. Severe emotional pain that has to be experienced alone becomes lastingly traumatic and usually succumbs to some form of emotional numbing.

Our ability to protect those we love from tragedies like mass killings is severely limited. We must be able pursue gun control without embarking upon a "War on Guns" to evade traumatic feelings and vulnerabilities that we need to own and face.

A renewal of humanistic values and practices is taking place in contemporary psychotherapy, embodying a move away from formulaic and manualized techniques and toward engaged empathic-introspective inquiry and emotional understanding.

Schuyler Iona's musical tribute to those who died on September 11, 2001 is a gift to all of us, giving us extraordinary access to an experience of world-shattering trauma and a courageous effort to emerge from it.

Apocalyptic anxiety anticipates the collapse of human civilization itself and of all meaningfulness. And it is from apocalyptic anxiety that we turn away when we deny the extreme perils of climate change.

Obama could no more miraculously save us from the cumulative consequences of many years of economic foolishness than Bush's holy war against the "forces of evil" could resurrect our lost illusions of grandiose invincibility.

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